Goodbye
by TheCauldron
Summary: Drabble, HPDM. Letting go can be the hardest thing to do. Especially when they never knew there was anything to let go of in the first place.


**Authors Note: this is a little Drabble I knocked up during my recent hospital stay. I was rather heavily medicated, but hopefully it isn't too bad. Reviews are always welcome!**

I watch you, you know, as you strut around the castle in your hand sewn Italian leather shoes. Your uniform is crisp and starched, spotless and uncreased over your slim, toned body. You're perfect, and you know it too. Your cologne is fresh and spicy, an unidentifiable but unique scent that makes my mouth water uncontrollably.

Do you taste as perfect as you look and smell, I wonder? I bet you do. I imagine you taste like coffee (white, one sugar) and those cherry chocolates you're always eating when you think nobody is looking.

I see you smile and flick you hair from your face, only for that open expression to fall into a sneer when you catch sight of me. You scoff, tossing some cutting comment at me, an insult dropping from those perfect peach lips with casual distain. It hurts, but I snarl back like you expect me to. It's just how we are. You'd be suspicious if I didn't.

I saw you helping that Gryffindor first year when her bag split. You repaired her ink pot, charming it unbreakable, then spelled the ink off the floor and returning it to its rightful container. You never saw me there in the alcove, but I saw you. And I heard you joke with the grateful girl, telling her that your reputation rested in her hands and to pretty please don't tell anyone. She laughed and you smiled at her. I'd give anything for you to smile at me like that.

I heard you, apologising quietly to Hermione. You gave her a rare book from your personal collection. I borrowed it from her. It still smelled like you. I can't help but be jealous of her for having that tiny piece of you, willingly given.

I had Dobby steal your scarf the other week. I sleep with it wrapped around my hand, pressed tightly against my face with the scent of your cologne carrying me into dreams where I can fall asleep to it without having to steal your laundry; your heartbeat steady under my ear and your arms around me, holding me close, holding me safe. It hurts every time I wake and it's not real.

You've changed, so much, and I wish I could tell you how amazing you are, and how much I admire you for your courage. People praise me for my bravery, but it's always been easy for me. I don't think that counts as real courage. Real courage is what you did, turning your back on your beliefs and family to support the opposing side, even though you knew we may never win. But we did, because of you and the information you fed us.

I wish you saw me, the way I see you. You seem to see everyone else, but I'm still the same old Potter to you. There have been so many changes, do you cling to our rivalry as the last bastion of familiarity? Is our trading of blows and barbs the rock that lets you carry on? I both hope and fear so. If I'm your rock then I will gladly weather the storm that is your scorn if it helps you, while I weep that you will never see me clearly enough to give me a chance to earn your love.

You've had mine for years.

I saw the announcement in the paper today. Your engagement to Astoria Greengrass made front page news, congratulations. I pretend I didn't even notice, while inside my heart is shattering; and outside, Ginny is cooing over it and sighing dreamily about what our announcement might be like. Never mind that we never started dating again, she just assumed we were and refuses to see all evidence of my reticence.

Now that you are gone, I no longer have any reason to resist. Congratulations to me too, I guess.

What hurts the most, though, is that despite my efforts, you never even looked, not once. You never knew I loved you. I take a deep breath and don the mantle expected of the Boy Who Lived. You were right. I'll never be more than that. It was foolish of me to try.

With suffocating thoroughness, the shell of my prewritten fairytale seals around me. Impenetrable. Permanent. A shatter proof cage of social expectation and an immovable mask of public capitulation. I will smile and wave, and become an Auror, marrying my school sweetheart and acquiring the white picket fence and 2.5 children. Just like they expect of me. And I will keep the silent screams locked away deep inside, unheard and unvoiced. Forever.

I let the fledging self that struggled for your notice die and be buried under the weight of "I always knew" and "when you have children". I don't know why I even tried. I'll never be more than an empty caricature to you.

Please, be happy, for both of us. I can only do this if I know you have everything you want and need in life. As long as you are happy, I can persevere for the rest of my life.

Goodbye Draco. I'll always love you.


End file.
